


i see you

by cosettefauchelevents



Category: Poldark (TV 2015)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, can i be any more biblical allegory trash?, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 12:59:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4436405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosettefauchelevents/pseuds/cosettefauchelevents
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is his greatest sin, this girl who took his empty, jagged soul in her hands and said simply “Live”</p>
            </blockquote>





	i see you

 “Demelza sings”

He doesn’t know what comes over him to say it, just that he can’t bear to see the shame and sadness in Demelza’s eyes as Ruth taunts her, and the prospect of Demelza’s voice putting them all to shame is too tempting to pass up.

The rage on her face is so endearing that he nearly drops the social niceties and kisses her right there, but instead he just grins and mouths encouragement at her as she moves towards the harp.

As she plucks the string he can see her chest moving with ragged breaths, and suddenly he worries that he’s put her in the worst possible situation.

She starts to sing, and he feels a tidal wave of relief and pride for her, standing in this room full of lions in the clothing of a lamb.

In her voice he can hear the way the sunlight kisses her hair on the clifftops, the sound of her smile when she’s laughing at him and the way her eyes reflect the Cornish sea. He can see her funny, clumsy curtsey and the accented way she calls his name and the way her body fits to his like it was made for him.

Her eyes meet his, and the sad tenderness in them takes his breath away. Everyone around them is watching and listening, but she’s singing only to him, and the words are plucked from her very soul like gunshot into his heart.

“Red is my heart, wounded and forlorn”

And his heart is wounded too, aching and swollen with sorrow for breaking this girl, his reckless, glorious salvation, who stormed into his life and wrapped her unruly red curls around everything he is.

Who he’s hurt, so badly she’s pleading with him, and though Ross knows her face better than any he’s known he cannot see what’s done it.

She’s so brave, his Demelza, and so strong, that sometimes he forgets how hard this is for her, marriage to a man who has the power to break her whole existence apart, whose family has dictated the lives of hers for centuries.

He looks at Elizabeth, beside her, and finds that he doesn’t want to.

After her betrayal, he never thought he could love again, never thought he’d even want to. But now he watches Demelza sing and finds that nothing in the world could induce him to look away, come fire or flood or Biblical rage.

She is his greatest sin, this girl who took his empty, jagged soul in her hands and said simply _“Live”,_ and he is so scared he has ruined her, that by marrying her he’s merely made her officially in the gutter, that by loving her too much he will tempt a malicious Fate to tear them both down.

But it isn’t fair to her.

It isn’t fair to make her believe she’s married to a man who tolerates but can never love her, who thinks her unworthy or less than him.

He knows now what she thinks, can see it in her eyes as she sings, baring her soul to him, and is brought to his knees by her simplicity.

_See me, Ross, see me and know me and love me, if you will._

He doesn’t deserve her, and as she finishes the song, looking at him with such love and hope written plain as day across her face, all he wants is to run across the room and scoop her up, his Demelza, and breathe her in so he can never let her go.

He settles instead for promising himself to tell her, the moment he can, that he loves her.

He hopes that it’s enough.


End file.
